


Book Smart

by TheAfterglow



Series: Are We Not More? [3]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: "P" is for Poetry, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Deleted Scenes, F/M, Horny book nerds, Political AU, Political Campaigns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23477959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAfterglow/pseuds/TheAfterglow
Summary: Deleted scene from If Not Us where Sen. Solo decides to steal Rey's book
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Are We Not More? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1549903
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37





	Book Smart

**Author's Note:**

> For all you Reylo Fanfic Bookclub Discord-ers... you did this! This is a "deleted scene" for [If Not Us Chapter 7 (The Desert)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083872/chapters/33458556%22) following Rey fainting and then discovering her novel is missing from her bag.

The crew gathered under a jacaranda tree outside the Los Alamos VFW hall to ready the bus for departure. They had a long ride ahead of them through an empty stretch of the West to their final stop before flying home, and ten hours would put them into Salt Lake around midnight. While Ben longed to be home, he mostly just wanted to be away from here. 

The stop was an unmitigated bust. Rey’s incident gave the rest of the team something else to talk about as they waited, their luggage piled in a heap next to a large paddle cactus bearing overripe prickly pears. He exchanged a glance with Hux over them before toeing a rock with the tip of his dress shoe. 

They’d need a shine at the hotel, these shoes. The dust already coated the shiny black leather, dulling it in the early afternoon sun.

Ben didn’t know what people saw in the desert. For years his mother’s friends had spoken of the Southwest as a winter destination superior to Florida’s tropical beaches but as he gazed out from the mesa at the vast, brown horizon, he didn’t understand. Who would choose, willingly, to live in a place that was designed to kill you? Los Angeles had its charms, that glittering cowtown by the ocean full of beautiful fakes, as did San Francisco with its narrow, hilly streets and lurking fog, but this place? It felt as alien as another country to him.

This was how he knew he was, and always would be, an Easterner. And not just someone from the East, but a true city person. Nowhere else could compare to New York. 

He moved away from the group, hands shoved deep in his pockets as he manipulated the rock. No one seemed to notice he was edging away in their concern over Rey, who was doing her level best to wave them away. 

He glanced at her a few times out of the tops of his eyes to gauge her recovery. Now that she was upright once more, Rey seemed no worse for the wear. She had been eager to wave him away when he’d gone to her in the office and he supposed she was embarrassed, though why he didn’t know. She’d been with the campaign now almost a month and managed to prove her worth beyond what he’d expected. 

Not that his expectations had been high, necessarily. Ben frowned to himself as he turned away from the team. He’d _expected_ she would quit, that it would be too much for her. The travel, the long days, the late nights, the… the unrelenting masculine energy of them all together.

If it was too much for the girl, she didn’t show it easily. 

The bus’s diesel engine rattled to life behind him and he turned to find them all still clustered around her. Rey’s hand was raised to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the blinding desert sun. 

He thought again of her cool dismissal of his criticism a few weeks before about her book, that blasted thick hardcover she lugged everywhere with her. 

It was then the thought occurred to him. 

He strode to the pile of luggage and grabbed Rey’s bag from the edge. 

“Are we boarding already?” Finn called over to him. The rest of the group made no attempt to move yet.

“I’ll--I’m just gonna get Rey’s bag for her!” Ben was already halfway to the bus stairs with it slung over his shoulder.

His eyes couldn’t adjust to the dark inside the bus quickly enough and he swore a blue streak after slamming his shin into a seat’s leg along the aisle. She usually sat towards the back, on the right side, and he tossed the small bag onto the seat in front of him. 

He steadied himself with his palms on the backrests for a moment as he stared down at it. 

It was wrong of him and he knew it, but so was she. Everything about her _being here_ was off. 

He grabbed the metal zipper pull, still burning hot from the desert sun, and yanked her bag open. 

A silk sleep mask lay atop her nightgown on the very top, followed by a layer of clothes folded neatly. The garments were warm from lying in the sun and he glanced up and out the window at the group as he rifled around the edges for his prize. His hand grazed the quilted satin of her makeup case, then the smooth cardboard of some drugstore item or other--he pictured the boxes he’d discovered by mistake under the sink in his mother’s vanity when he was twelve--before he felt the fabric of the binding of her book at the far end. 

“Aha!” He pulled it out and straightened, feeling the material of his dress shirt contact the wet spt between his shoulder blades beneath his jacket. 

The cover was embossed in gold with the title. _The Group_. 

Just then voices startled him from the entryway of the bus. It was Mitaka, talking shit about the Dodgers. 

“Shit,” he muttered, tossing the book behind him into his own seat and throwing his suit jacket over it. 

He turned back to his work and was just about to close the bag when he saw the box that was beneath the book. 

It was… 

His heart thudded in his chest as he held back her clothes to peer at it more closely. 

How did she have these? And _why_? The box of condoms was open, no less, and Ben could see a few of the wrappers were missing. 

“We got your bag, Senator!” Finn called back to him and he heard Rey’s voice now too at the front of the bus. 

He pushed the clothes into place once more and yanked the zipper closed, stuffing her bag beneath the seat. 

“Thanks, Finn!” He hoped he sounded normal as he eased into his own seat, accepting his own bag from the younger man with a small smile. “It’s hot as balls on this bus.”

“I know,” Finn tugged at his own shirt collar. “You’ve got the right idea taking your jacket off.” 

With that, he turned away to find his regular place up front and sidled past Rey, who made her way steadily towards him now. 

Their eyes met for a moment before she spoke softly. “Thanks for getting my bag, Senator.” 

_Senator_. So she was back to that, was she? He supposed he had told her to call him that. 

“You’re welcome,” he replied, shoving the book farther to the edge of the seat where it lay beneath his jacket. 

Hours passed. The sky darkened outside as they wound their way through the mountains, out of New Mexico towards Utah. Everyone was quiet and he was deep into his book of poetry when her light went on above her seat. 

His heart stopped when he saw her reach for her bag. She hunted through it three times before pulling it fully up onto her lap, her hands making the same trips through her belongings as his had before they left. 

Watching her was almost too much to bear. He waited for her to huff with frustration before he spoke.

“You alright over there?”

She turned back and he could barely make out her features in the dark, backlit by her own reading light. 

“I think I left my novel at the hotel. And it was a gift from my friends when I graduated.”

He made a show of bookmarking his own page before looking at her again. 

“Do you want to borrow mine?” He had several with him. Lending her one wouldn’t be an issue. 

“I don’t want to take your book--you’re reading it,” she replied. 

“I have others,” he answered readily. “This one’s just for fun. But… maybe you wouldn’t like it anyway.”

“I like to read all kinds of things,” Rey parroted his insult back to him. “What is it?”

 _This girl!_ His gut twisted strangely at hearing his own teasing. He stood, steadying himself against the rocking of the bus and thrust out the cover for her to examine.

“Poetry?” She smiled up at him now. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a poetry reader, Senator.” 

He stared down at her for a beat, relishing the irony of her retort. _I wouldn’t have pegged you for a lot of things, Rey_. It was right on the tip of his tongue but instead he replied, “You don’t have to take it. But… poetry is better if you hear it out loud. It’s meant to be read out and listened to.”

Her smile faded a touch and she settled away from him, towards the window. He folded himself into the seat beside her and cleared his throat. It was unbelievable, but he felt a touch nervous at the thought of reading to her. This poem wasn’t romantic, but somehow seeing what she had in her bag changed everything. 

He glanced at her and she responded only with one raised eyebrow that struck him like a challenge. 

“I saw--” He broke off and cleared his throat again before restarting. “I saw the best minds of my generation, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for a fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night…”

He noticed her eyes were closed somewhere in the middle of the second section, but he kept reading until the words ended. 

_I’m with you in Rockland_

_in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night._

She didn’t stir as he reached up to extinguish the reading light but he stayed beside her, listening to her soft breathing as he gazed out at the stars.


End file.
